CLXXX. TO THE BISHOP OF NORWICH.

Rugby, June 7, 1838.

I am much obliged to you for the information contained in your letter. I have always objected to the rule which you have marked A; whereas I agree with Rule B, if by " peculiarity of doctrinal views," be meant the peculiar opinions of any denomination of Christians. But Rule A seems to me to be needlessly offensive. As the theological examination is not necessary to the Degree, no one surely but Christians would wish to pass it; and why should we say that we do not intend it to imply any man's belief in Christianity? I, for one, could never examine any man in the New Testament, if I thought that he did not believe it, or was not in a state of mind in which he was honestly and respectfully acquiring a knowledge of it with a view to his religious belief. I have always thought that to examine it merely as a matter of curious information was a very great profaneness.

Again, have you thought any thing more of what Archbishop Whately suggested to Dr. Jerrard, through Dr. Dickenson, that the certificate of a man's Degree should notice his having passed the theological Examination? Now I see that the theological Examination is to follow the Degree, so that this cannot be done; and the Degree is to all intents and purposes complete before the theological Examination even comes into question. And, when I find from Hugh Rose's letter to Hare, in answer to some inquiries of mine, that he will care little whether the students of King's College pass our Examination in theology or no, I am greatly afraid that our Examination will fail practically, as well as in principle, to make a marked distinction between the Christian and unchristian students of our University:-the one great point which Warburton dreads, and I deem essential.

I cannot disguise from myself that the University of London, in its public capacity, cannot be considered as a Christian institution, although it may happen that all its branches individually may be Christians; and therefore I must withdraw from it. Living at such a distance as I do, can be of no practical use; and, if I could, I feel that the practical good to the extent which alone would be possible, would be dearly bought by my acquiescence in a principle which I so strongly disapprove.

To see my hopes for this new University thus frustrated, is one of the greatest disappointments I have ever met with. But I cannot be reconciled to such a total absence of all confession of the Lord Jesus, and such a total neglect of the command to do all things in His name, as seems to me to be hopelessly involved in the constitution of our University.

As to the manner of my resignation, I would fain do it in the quietest manner possible, consistent with the simple declaration of the reasons which led me to it. I suppose that the proper way would be to write a

short letter to the Chancellor.

CLXXXI.

TO AN OLD PUPIL. (D.)-ON DIFFICULTIES IN SUB

SCRIPTION.

Fox How, June 22, 1838.

My own answer must be clear to you from my own practice. I do not believe the damnatory clauses in the Athanasian Creed,

under any qualification given of them, except such as substitute for them propositions of a wholly different character. Those clauses proceed on a false notion, which I have' elsewhere noticed, that the importance of all opinions touching God's nature is to be measured by His greatness; and that therefore erroneous notions about the Trinity are worse than erroneous notions about Church government, or pious frauds, or any other disputed point on which there is a right and a wrong, a true and a false, and on which the wrong and the false may indeed be highly sinful; but it does not follow that they must be; and their sinfulness does not depend upon their wrongness and falsehood, but on other circumstances in the particular mind of the person holding them. But I read the Athanasian Creed, and have and would again subscribe the Article about it, because I do not conceive the clauses in question to be essential parts of it, or that they were retained deliberately by our Reformers after the propriety of retaining or expunging them had been distinctly submitted to their minds. They retained the Creed, I doubt not, deliberately; to show that they wished to keep the faith of the general Church in matters relating to the Arian, Macedonian, Nestorian, Eutychian, and Socinian controversies; and as they did not scruple to burn Arians, so neither would they be likely to be shocked by the damnatory clauses against them; but I do not imagine that the Article about the Creed was intended in the least to refer to the clauses, as if they supposed that a man might embrace the rest of the Creed, and yet reject them. Nor do I think that the Reformers, or the best and wisest men of the Church since, would have objected to any man's subscription, if they had conceived such a case; but would have said, "What we mean you to embrace is the belief of the general Church, as expressed in the Three Creeds, with regard to the points,-many of them having been much disputed,-on which those creeds pronounce ;the degree of blameableness in those who do not embrace this belief is another matter, on which we do not intend to speak particularly in this Article." I do not think there is any thing evasive or unfair in this. I do not think that it even requires in its defence,-what is yet most true,— that Church subscriptions must be taken in their widest rather than in their strictest sense, except on points where they were especially intended to be stringent, and to express the opposite of some suspected opinion. Yet, when you speak of others throwing your subscription in your teeth, you may surely say that it does indeed require the utmost laxity of interpretation to reconcile Newmanism with a subscription to our Articles, because there, on points especially disputed, such as the Authority of Tradition, and the King's Supremacy, the Church of England and the Newmanites are directly at variance. As far as Keble or Newman are concerned, the most decided Socinian might subscribe the Articles as consistently as they do; but this of course is not the point, and my opinion as to the damnatory clauses, as it is much older than the rise of Newmanism, so it stands on grounds far different from a mere argumentum ad hominem, and is, I think, perfectly right, considered simply on the merits of the case.

When the faults of the London University revive all my tenderness for Oxford, then the faults of Oxford repel me again, and make it impossible to sympathize with a spirit so uncongenial. Wherefore I

1) Postscript to "Principles of Church Reform," p. 9. For the limitation to this statement, see, amongst other passages, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 140.

wish the wish of Achilles, when he looked out upon the battle of the ships, and desired that the Greeks and Trojans might destroy one another and leave the field open for better men.

We had a very prosperous journey, and arrived here yesterday evening about nine o'clock. The place is most beautiful; but the rain is falling thick.

CLXXXII. TO T. F. ELLIS, ESQ.

Rugby, August 29, 1838. Independently of the real pleasure which it would give me to be of any service to a friend of yours, I have that admiration of Mr. Macaulay's writings, and have derived so much pleasure from them, that it would be but a matter of simple gratitude to do any thing in my power towards facilitating his observations during his stay at Rome. I was there myself so very short a time, that I was able only to look at the mere outline of things; and it was my object to go to as many of the higher points as I could, in and about Rome, that by getting the landscape from a number of different points I might better understand the bearings of its several parts towards one another. For instance, I went to the top of the dome of St. Peter's; to that of the tower of the Capitol; to the Monte Mario; the terrace of the Church of St. Pietro in Montorio, (on the old Janiculum,) that of the Convent of S. Gregorio, I think it is, on the Cœlian, (from which you look upon the reverse of the Esquiline, just at the place where the street of the Carinæ ran along,) to the old mound of Ser. Tullius; to the summits of the Aventine and Palatine, &c.; by which I always fancy that I have retained a more distinct and also a more lively and picturesque image of Rome than I could otherwise have gained within the same space of time; and if I were to go again, I think I should do the same thing. Out of Rome I should recommend, as near objects, Tivoli, of course, and the Alban hills, and especially Palestrina (Præneste). If I could get there again, I should wish especially to take the upper road from Rome to Naples, by Palestrina, Anagni, Frosinone, and the valley of the Garigliano. This is every way a most interesting line, and it might easily include Arpino. I am not sure where you would best come out upon the plain of Naples. I should try to get by S. Germano and Monte Cassino, into the great road from Naples, across to the Adriatic; and so to descend by the Valley of the Voltorno, either upon Capua, or straight by Carazzo and Caserta.

Much must depend on the state of the banditti, which is always known on the spot. If they are well put down, as I believe they are, the upland valleys in the central Apennines are most attractive. I had a plan once of turning off from the great road at Terni, then ascending the valley of the Velino to Rieti, and making my way through what they call the Cicolano,-the country of the Aborigines of Cato,-down upon Alba and the Lake Fucinus; from thence you can go either to Rome or Naples, as you like. The neighbourhood of Alba is doubly interesting, as it is close by the field of Scurzola, the scene of Conradin's defeat by Charles of Anjou. In Etruria I would make any efforts to get to Volterra, which is accessible enough, either from Leghorn or from Sienna. If Mr. Macaulay is going into the kingdom of Naples, he will find Keppel Craven's recent book, "Travels in the Abruzzi," &c., exceedingly useful,-as a regular

guide, I have not met with a better book. Does he know Westphal's book on the Campagna ? lengthy, but full of details, which are carefully done.

.....

CLXXXIII. TO REV. DR. HAWKINS.

(Two letters, as being closely connected with each other, are here joined,) Fox How, August 5, 1838.

(A.)

Just before the holidays, I had a letter from Cardwell, in which he mentioned that there was some scheme for enlarging the sphere of the Degree Examination. I should rejoice at this, but I more desire your old plan of an Examination at entrance, which would be so great a benefit at once to you and to us. With regard to the Examinations, I hear a general complaint of the variableness of the standard; that new Examiners lay the main stress on the most different things: with some, Scholarship is every thing, with others History, with others the Aristotle, &c. Now it is a very good thing that all these should have their turn, and should all be insisted upon; but I think that some notice should be given beforehand, and that a new Examiner should state, like the Prætors at Rome, what points he intended particularly to require; for at present, the men say that they are often led to attend to one thing, from the experience of the last Examination, and then a new Examiner attaches the greatest importance to something else.

(B.)

I hear that you are thinking of extending the range of your Examinations at Oxford, at which I wish you all manner of success. I do not think that you need in the least to raise the standard of your classes, but a pass little go, or even great go, is surely a ridiculous thing, as all that the University expects of a man after some twelve or fourteen years of schooling and lecturing. I think, too, that physical science can nowhere be so well studied as at Oxford, because the whole spirit of the place is against its undue ascendency; for instance, Anatomy, which in London is dangerously, as I think, made one of the qualifi cations for a degree, might be, I imagine, profitably required at Oxford, where you need not dread the low morals and manners of so many of the common medical students.

I have read Froude's volume,' and I think that its predominant character is extraordinary impudence. I never saw a more remarkable instance of that quality than the way in which he, a yonng man, and a clergyman of the Church of England, reviles all those persons whom the accordant voice of that Church, without distinction of party, has agreed to honour, even perhaps with an excess of admiration.

CLXXXIV. TO THE REV. W. K. HAMILTON.

Rugby, October 5, 1838.

Will you thank Wordsworth for his specimen of his Grammar when you write to him? I am glad that he writes it in Latin, being fully convinced that an English Grammar will never be remembered with equal tenacity.

1) i. e. the first volume of the first part of Froude's Remains. The other three Times he had not read.

You are indeed too much of a stranger to us, and it would delight us to see you here again, or still more to see you in Westmoreland. But I know the claims of your parish upon your time; as well as those of your relations. Only, whenever you can come to us, let me beg that you will not let slip the opportunity,

There seems to me to be a sort of atmosphere of unrest and paradox hanging around many of our ablest young men of the present day, which makes me very uneasy. I do not speak of religious doubts, but rather of questions as to great points in moral and intellectual matters; where things which have been settled for centuries seem to be again brought into discussion. This restless love of paradox, is, I believe, one of the main causes of the growth of Newmanism; first, directly, as it leads men to dispute and oppose all the points which have been agreed upon in their own country for the last two hundred years; and to pick holes in existing reputations; and then, when a man gets startled at the excess of his skepticism, and finds that he is cutting away all the ground under his feet, he takes a desperate leap into a blind fanaticism. I cannot find what I most crave to see, and what still seems to me no impossible dream, inquiry and belief going together, and the adherence to truth growing with increased affection, as follies are more and more cast away.

But I have seen lately such a specimen of this and of all other things that are good and wise and holy, as I suppose can hardly be matched again in the world. Bunsen has been with us for six days with his wife and Henry. It was delightful to find that my impression of his extraordinary excellence had not deceived me; that the reality even surpassed my recollection of what he was eleven years ago.

CLXXXV. TO THE EARL OF BURLINGTON.
(Chancellor of the University of London.)

Rugby, November 7, 1838.

It is with the greatest regret that, after the fullest and fairest deliberation which I have been able to give to the subject, I feel myself obliged to resign my Fellowship in the University of London.

The Constitution of the University seems now to be fixed, and it has either begun to work, or will soon do so. After the full discussion given to the question, on which I had the misfortune to differ from the majority of the Senate, I felt that it would be unbecoming to agitate the matter again, and it only remained for me to consider whether the institution a voluntary Examination in Theology would satisfy, either practically or in theory, those principles which appeared to me to be indispensable.

I did not wish to decide this point hastily, but after the fullest consideration and inquiry, I am led to the conclusion that the voluntary Examination will not be satisfactory. Practically I fear it will not, because the members of King's College will not be encouraged by their own authorities, so far as I can learn, to subject themselves to it; and the members of University College may be supposed, according to the principles of their own society, to be averse to it altogether. But, even if it were to answer practically better than I fear it will do, still it does not satisfy the great principle that Christianity should be the base of all public education